Gadgetory

- Here on the desk we have a monitor from AOC. This is the AG322QC4. It sports: a 32-inch 1800R curvature; Quad HD, that's 1440p; 144 hertz; AU Optronics VA panel. It also boasts Freesync 2 support ranging from 30 hertz to 144 hertz. And within this spec itself, it supports HDR 400, the 400 standing for 400 CCD units of brightness available in control. So without further ado, let's take this panel through all the paces, ranging from input lag to response times to see if it is really a good gaming monitor; and if so, it can double down as a photo/video editing monitor. ♪ I wish that I was a madman ♪ ♪ But then maybe I live full for you ♪ Welcome back to Tech YES City, and here it is right here. Comes in at 540 USD currently. Or if you're in Australia, 640 Aussie dollars. So the AUD pricing on this monitor in PPP terms compared to the US pricing is actually better, technically making this a better buy in Australia. Now straight away into the input lag itself. We measured this with a thousand FPS camera with a red light switching on a test total system input lag. This will give us a good idea of whether this monitor has inherent input lag itself. So the best frame we got here was 10 milliseconds, the worst frame 22 milliseconds, averaging out to 16.8 milliseconds of total input lag through the system. So the input lag is phenomenal on this monitor. This is with the input lag option itself set too low on, which I'm positive any gamer themselves will want to leave this feature on. So if I had to guesstimate an input like figure for this monitor directly, it would have under 10 milliseconds, making it really good. However, since this monitor does have a VA panel, we have to check out the response times, which are very important at 144 hertz. Since every frame is transitioning at around seven milliseconds, we'd want response times either at this seven milliseconds or under for lthe best viewing experience. And so this got four different overdrive settings: off, weak, medium and strong. On the medium setting, we were getting around seven to eight milliseconds of response times in CS:GO. Changing over to the strongest setting, we're getting around six to seven milliseconds, meaning it was just coming under the threshold of being acceptable for a decent gaming monitor at this resolution and 144 hertz. However, moving on with other settings important to this monitor is the brightness. Since it is rated a 400 CCD, we did test this out with the i1Display Pro. And the best square that we measured was 379. So it is coming a little bit under that rating, but the white uniformity on this model was very good, with the worst case scenario from the center being 5%. So very well uniform all round. Doing a crosshatch test with an orange background, I did notice a smidgen of crosshatching at 144 hertz. However, from a normal viewing distance of 80 centimeters, this won't be a problem at all. Moving on to the backlight bleed itself, it was phenomenal in that there was really no noticeable backlight bleed, even on a pure black background with my camera going all the way up to 400,000 ISO. So so far for gaming, this is a good monitor. But what about out-of-the-box settings for photo and color accuracy? Say you wanna use this as not just a gaming monitor but something to edit videos too. Well, using the i1Display Pro measuring the out-of-the-box profile, it was pretty off in pretty much every spectrum from low to high key, as well as the colors themselves. Changing this to the SRGB mode as well was a little bit better, but it still wasn't accurate. So if you were getting this monitor for photo or video editing, I wouldn't suggest it. Unless of course you do wanna calibrate it yourself. However, upon pulling this monitor out of the box, I will start to talk about the build quality and feature set, and this monitor is exceptional in this regard. It's got a very thin bezel, pretty much a frameless design, as well as the stand being very high quality. And it has a tilt, height and swivel adjust on the horizontal plane. Vertical, it doesn't have swivel adjust there so that's the one thing. If you wanna mount this vertically, then you will need a different stand. However, it does have support for VESA mounting, and there was no croaking when I was moving this monitor around. It was very firm and had a tight build quality. Moving through the OSD, I think AOC have absolutely nailed this. You get a D-pad on the bottom where you can easily go through all the different settings. And speaking of the settings themselves, it's very in depth, gives you full control of things like shadows. And it's also got an interesting feature called game color, which if you wanna give that saturated unrealistic look, which I personally love when it comes to enjoying games, then you can change this up from 10 on the default setting up to 20. I found 15 looked very good, especially when I was playing Battlefield 5. The colors really came out. So great setting to have in his monitor. Moving through other features, you've got full RGB control. You've got blue light control as well if you wish to lower the blue light at nighttime; as well as having different game modes built-in, ranging from RTS to FPS, to custom game modes, which you can then save for yourself. Though on the OSD itself, you also get the ability to control the LED lighting, which is on the bottom in two different zones; and on the rear, with four different zones. But they all come to the same color, ranging from either the choice of red, green or blue. And you can control the intensity of that. Moving through the inputs and outputs, you get SVGA, as well as two HDMI ins and two DisplayPort ins, supporting up to DisplayPort 1.2. There's also a USB and data hub, as well as an additional port for the included controller itself, which you can then control pretty much all the settings you could control through the D-pad itself, just externally via the commander. Also included with the monitor is two speakers, which are mounted in the rear of the unit. And the sound itself could be described simply as muddy. I personally wouldn't be buying this monitor for the included speakers, but will get voice out of it if you just wanna use it for Skype conversations. Though if you are looking for some decent sound, definitely look at picking up some separate speakers or headphones. On to the last big setting with this monitor and printed on the box, the HDR. Moving through the YouTube demos, just like any other monitor I've had come through here under a thousand dollars this year, it does look good on those YouTube HDR demos. Definitely better than the default settings. But when it came to games, I do much prefer leaving HDR off. The colors seemed to be washed out, just like the Windows desktop. And personally on this monitor, I much prefer just using the default setting with the color mode set to 15. Anyway, if you survived until here, it is now conclusion time with the AG322QC4. And what do I personally think of it? Well, I think it's a gaming monitor, and so if you're looking for something for color accuracy, I'd go elsewhere. But if you want a very enjoyable monitor for gaming, has 144 hertz, it has decent response times with the strong overdrive settings, six to seven milliseconds; it has very low input lag, as well as having great viewing angles, then this monitor is definitely worth a look. Comes in at 540 US; or in Australia, 640 AUD. And honestly, for gaming, it is a really nice monitor. I really do like the implementation of the OSD as well in that you can get that more immersive experience, especially if you're playing RTS by simply hitting the game colors up and getting that nice saturated look. As well as having those extra features for competitive gamers too like shadow control, FPS display on the monitor itself, which you can put in four different corners, and having a manual crosshair overlay on the monitor itself, which I don't think is actually allowed in competitive play. But anyway, this monitor does pack a big punch, and I hope you enjoyed today's review. If you did, then be sure to hit that like button, and let us know in the comment section below what you think of the AOC Agon 32-inch monitor here on the desk. Love reading your thoughts and opinions as always, and I'll catch you in another tech video very soon. Peace out for now, bye. (upbeat music)